Farm Animal Welfare Moves Up Business Agenda
By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International The second report of the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare has been published with the expertise and support of animal welfare organisations, Compassion in World Farming (CWF) and World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). 70 companies from across Europe and the USA were assessed, representing…
Guilt free chocolate anyone?
According to the BMJ this week, the average half life of a chocolate in a busy hospital ward is 51 minutes with some brands lasting longer than others. They last rather longer in my quieter office but still we have eaten a few in the run up to Christmas. What if the food industry could…
Angry and sad at Xmas: victims of adolescent bullying
There have been far too many stories recently of desperate teenagers committing suicide, and an unknown number of families today will be reeling from the discovery that their teenager is seriously self-harming because of bullying. Mobile phones and social networking sites have exacerbated an age-old problem so that there is nowhere to hide. Poison-pen letter…
Mental Health – What can we learn from low and middle income countries?
“Turning the World Upside Down – Mental Health Challenge” is an open competition to celebrate projects and ideas from low and middle income countries (LIC) which could effectively be applied to major health challenges faced by high income countries. Four case studies were pitched in a Dragon’s Den style challenge on Wednesday 27th November at…
25th Annual World AIDS Day: Progress towards 2015
December 1st 2013 will mark the 25th annual World AIDS Day with this year’s theme, “Shared Responsibility: Strengthening Results for an AIDS-Free Generation”. World AIDS Day provides an opportunity to spread awareness about the current status of the pandemic and to encourage progress in HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment around the world. According…
Helping the Crowd Fight Malaria
On Tuesday 15th October, I attended the International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases: Integrated Disease Surveillance & Vector Control annual conference in London. While there were many interesting presentations on epidemiology and surveillance techniques, innovations in vector control and the various impacts of resistance, I was most intrigued by the concept of crowd-sourcing for malaria…
World Food Day 2013
How can we feed an increasing population with healthy, nutritional, sustainably-produced food? Each year on the 16 October, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN celebrates World Food Day. This year’s theme, “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition”, aims to raise awareness of problems and solutions in the drive to end…
Managing disasters, saving lives…
October 13th is International Disaster Reduction Day, which is aimed at celebrating how people and communities are reducing their risk to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of disaster reduction. While some disasters are man-made and avoidable to some extent, many natural disasters are inevitable. In an Annual Disaster Review of 2012, 357 natural…
Can the growth of cities help to eliminate malaria?
The past century has seen unprecedented growth in cities around the world. Whilst the rise of megacities is a source of concern to some (see Feral cities, BBC Radio 4), according to researchers from the UK and USA, urbanization has been followed by a significant contraction in the extent of malaria throughout endemic countries.
Hepatitis: a case of see no evil hear no evil speak no evil.
What do Pamela Anderson the actor, and Billy Graham the wrestler have in common? A quick search on Wikipedia will show you they both are reported to have had hepatitis C. Pamela got it apparently by sharing a needle for a tattoo, Billy by exposure of blood during competitions. Evel Knievel the dare devil stuntman…